In the course of conducting our day to day business, deputies from the sheriff’s office often respond to calls for service where a gun is seized. Some of these guns are seized because they have been reported stolen, some have been defaced (serial number has been removed) or altered; for example, a sawed-off shotgun would be considered an altered firearm. According to Revised Statutes of Missouri and U.S. Code, many of these firearms cannot be re-circulated into the public and must be destroyed. But, how do you go about destroying firearms made to withstand explosive pressures and made from tempered and hardened steel?

The sheriff’s office contracts with a company in Chesterfield, Missouri called Gunbusters USA to destroy our confiscated firearms. The Gunbusters Firearms Pulverizer System is an original design that literally shreds firearms into metal confetti. Our association with Gunbusters enables us to destroy confiscated and surrendered firearms on-site in Chesterfield at no cost to the agency. The system is designed to meet ATF firearms destruction standards and may also be used to destroy computer hard drives, knives, license plates and other evidence.

Since we began our association with Gunbusters in June of this year, the sheriff’s office sent more than twenty firearms for destruction that had been in our possession from as far back as 1997.

“Having these firearms destroyed beyond the possibility of repair, allows us to sleep soundly knowing they will never again be misused in order to harm another person. Once defaced, firearms become no longer the legitimate tool they were designed to be, but untraceable weapons often found in the hands of troubled youth.” – Sheriff Dwight Franklin